"An unfair game that holds good challenge, if you can call it that."

~Introduction~On March 31, 2000, I believe it was, the Pokemon Trading Card Game was released into the United States. Sure, this is a great game, don't misinterpret my score as being a bad thing, there are several things that reduced my overall rating for this game. Read on to discover why I gave it a 5/10.

~Storyline 8/10~Basically, you're playing as the "hero" who, after reading about the Legendary Pokemon Cards, decides he wants to inherit them and become the champion himself (I use "him" and "he" references because female characters weren't available until the release of Pokemon Crystal version). Doctor Mason agrees to help you if you agree to sit with him and his assistant and let them teach you what there is to know about the game itself. After that, you get to choose one of three decks to travel and duel with. You must obtain 8 Master Medals from Club Masters, and defeat the Four Grand Masters, plus your rival, Ronald. Ronald is pathetically weak (at least to me) and never wins; don't worry about him. His "invincible deck" really sucks.

~Gameplay 7/10~Pretty good. Considering you're only dueling with cards. It gets fun and exciting at times, but this is one of the portions of the game that the cons rear their ugly heads. The game itself isn't that bad, in fact, it's very fun to play if you don't suck at playing cards. I've enjoyed many hours (mainly at school) dueling my friends and stomping competition with my killer decks.

~Sound 7/10~The music rocks, some of it at least, but it's often repetitive. Sometimes while dueling, the music can set a mood for you and influence you to do better at duels, or maybe not. A lot of people aren't like me at all.

~Replayability 10/10~You can pretty much do almost anything over and over, mainly the duels, which lead to new booster packs, which in turn are a must if you want to see a chance at winning this unfair game.

~The Reason I Dub This Game As Unfair~It's simple, and everyone knows what I'm about to say. You don't? Oh well. The reason this game is so unfair is because of the coin tossing during duels. It isn't an actual coin toss with the 50/50 variable percentage that it will be heads or tails. It's more like a preset factor that doesn't even revolve around chance; it revolves around BS. I have tested my own theory and proven it over and over again. Say you save the game during a duel, now you use Squirtle's Bubble attack, which causes 10 damage and requires a "coin toss" to determine if the defending Pokemon is Paralyzed. Well, say you "toss" and it comes up tails, you don't want that, but you remembered you saved the game, so you turn it off, then back on again. Boom, same results. OVER and OVER. It doesn't matter if you restart 1000 times, it will always be tails. So if a game that is supposedly supporting the migratory coin toss function is indeed a coin toss, why is the 50/50 variable percentage possibility always a 50% determination of tails if it's impossible to flip 1000 coins and always come up tails? Told you. If you don't believe me, try it yourself. That and how other things work, but I won't get into that...

~Challenge?~Read the above topic first, but otherwise, a fairly good challenge.

~Buy or Rent?~Go ahead and buy it, it won't be that much of a budget cut. Today this game should cost cheap and not be a burden to play.

~Controls 9/10~Easy to remember and use. The Controls are one of the only things actually worth keeping in this game.

~Overall/Conclusion~Don't think I don't like this game because of my review for it; I love this game. It rocks. But it's uncouth coin tossing system truly damages the credibility of this game.